The Wonder of Sound
by TheTruthBetween
Summary: Lwaxana Troi is twenty years old and on her first great adventure when she meets Guinan, who, by contrast, passed her 500th birthday several years previously. (Trek Rare Pair Swap, round 16)


_È'mïãra is pronounced (more or less) ay-mee-ar-ah_

 _Story is based off this:_ _loverskisslikedeath*.*tumblr*.*com*/post/167079992834/ (remove the asterisks, obviously)_

* * *

Lwaxana Troi is twenty years old and on her first great adventure when she meets Guinan, who, by contrast, passed her 500th birthday several years previously. And while she is wiser and calmer than the excitable Betazoid, they both find the contrast enjoyable.

And so they travel together.

When Lwaxana gets called back to Betazed, Guinan joins her, noting that it had been some time since she'd seen the beauty of the Azure Peaks. Lwaxana is delighted. Her father, however, is not.

"I cannot _believe_ he was so rude!" Lwaxana exclaims, roughly grabbing clothes from her travel case and shoving them into her closet. "He wouldn't even talk to you!"

"I noticed," Guinan replied, smiling.

Pausing, Lwaxana frowns at the other woman, hands planted on her hips. "How can you be so calm about it?!"

"Rellan Troi is not the first person to treat me differently due to my race." Standing from her position on the chaise, Guinan pulls Lwaxana's hands from her hips, grasping her fingers lightly. "I'm not offended. If your father is so set on only speaking telepathically, that is his loss. He'll never hear the many voices and experiences of the galaxy."

Lwaxana smiles wistfully, thinking of her own first experiences after leaving home, discovering a symphony of sounds that she never would or could have experiences on quiet, calm Betazed. " _È'mïãra_ ," she notes. The word is blatantly misused, a musical term that denotes a feeling of wonder brought on by an orchestral composition, but it _fits_ in a way she wouldn't have even considered before leaving home.

" _È'mïãra_ ," Guinan agrees, and releases Lwaxana's hands.

Turning back to her clothes, Lwaxana adds, "He thinks you're corrupting me."

"Has he _met_ you?" Guinan asks, tone brimming with amusement.

Lwaxana blows out a breath and tosses a shiny, glittery purple skirt at the other woman, but otherwise ignores the comment. "He thinks you're too old to be spending time with me."

"Is that what you think?"

If they hadn't spent so much time together recently, Lwaxana would've thought Guinan was deflecting with the question. As it was, she takes the time to turn the question over in her mind, giving it the thought Guinan expects. "No," she finally answers. "I'm an adult with the ability to choose who I spend my time with, and beyond that, he implied that our friendship is inappropriate when it's not." Her dark eyes flick to the other woman's, and a smile plays at her lips. "And even if it was what he assumed, I'm old enough to make my own decisions on who I sleep with and when."

"Yes, you are," Guinan agrees evenly. Lwaxana's watching her lips move as she speaks, and when the younger woman leans forward, she's unsurprised.

Their mouths meet in a lipstick slide and Lwaxana fumbles for Guinan's hands, finding one and wrapping the fingers of her other hand in a voluminous sleeve. The El-Aurian's free hand slides to the curve of Lwaxana's waist above a hip covered in ruffled fabric.

The kiss draws out, nearly comes to an end, before deepening again and finally closing on a happy sigh from the young Betazoid. "My father is yelling at me," she states in an airy, almost irreverent voice.

"Tell him he shouldn't eavesdrop if he doesn't like what he overhears."

The statement draws a laugh from Lwaxana, and she kisses Guinan once more, affectionately. "I don't know what I would've done without your company the past couple of months."

Guinan returns to the chaise, reclining comfortably as Lwaxana goes back to unpacking. "Probably taken over several planetary governments."

Lwaxana hums noncommittally, but a sly smile quirks her lips. After that one incident with the Risian ambassador, she couldn't very well deny the teasing allegation. "Maybe I'll go into government," she muses. "After all, I am a Daughter of the Fifth House. It's expected of me."

"And you would be able to tell people what to do," Guinan notes, smiling as Lwaxana shoots her a wide grin.

"Yes," she agrees. "I could join the Counsel. Or perhaps become an ambassador, myself."

* * *

Lwaxana is sitting in Ten Forward in her most flattering dress, eyeing the men in the room with lackluster interest. She may have told Deanna that she's having fun with the Phase, but without a lover, it's a knife edge, fun on one side, frustration on the other. Currently frustration is winning.

"Xana."

Head whipping around, Lwaxana's eyes widen at one of the few people to use that nickname. "Guinan!"

On opposite sides of the bar, they both move around it, meeting in the middle and wrapping their arms around each other in open affection. Lwaxana can sense surprise from those in the room who have noticed, and vaguely wonders if it's directed toward Guinan, herself, or both, before dismissing the thought. It doesn't matter.

"I never thought to see you again," Lwaxana says, her forehead pressed to Guinan's, eyes closed.

"The galaxy isn't as large as it seems when you're twenty and leaving your planet for the first time," Guinan notes with a smile. "Those who matter always find their way back to you."

Lwaxana nods easily. "Yes." Although they had quickly lost contact, the quiet woman had always mattered to her.

After a moment, they pull away, and Guinan takes a brief moment to pass control of the bar over to one of the senior servers, and then they're leaving, walking hand-in-hand to the turbolift, to the quarters given to the ambassador.

"Say something," Lwaxana says when the silence draws out too far.

Guinan's lips pull into a smile again, and she asks, "Still enamored by sound, even after nearly forty years?"

"Yes, although less so," Lwaxana agrees, and adds, "But hearing your voice again… _È'mïãra_."

" _È'mïãra_ ," Guinan echoes, as she had years ago, and squeezes Lwaxana's fingers.

* * *

 _Thank Memory Beta for "Xana" - Morgan Primus "stated that she was the "aunt" of a woman nicknamed "'Xana" (possibly referring to Lwaxana Troi), who also had a daughter. (NF novel: Renaissance)"_

 _This was one of those things where I saw the pairing and went "how am I gonna write *that*?!" and by the end was like "I ship it."_


End file.
